Avitus Bernard "Vedie" Himsl (April 2, 1917 – March 15, 2004) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

, coach and scout. Born in Plevna, Montana, Himsl was a member of the class of 1938 from Saint John's University in

Collegeville, Minnesota Collegeville is an unincorporated community in St. Wendel Township, Stearns County, Minnesota, United States, near St. Joseph. The community is located near the junction of Collegeville Road and Old Collegeville Road. Nearby is Saint John's Abb ...

Career

Himsl was listed as tall and . A

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

in minor league baseball in his playing days (1938–42; 1946; 1950–51), he peaked at the top level of the minors with the St. Paul Saints of the

American Association American Association may refer to: Baseball * American Association (1882–1891), a major league active from 1882 to 1891 * American Association (1902–1997), a minor league active from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997 * American Association of Profe ...

, where he won 51 games over four seasons. Himsl managed and scouted for the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

' organization before joining the Chicago Cubs in the mid-1950s as a scout and minor league skipper. In , he was named to the coaching staff of the MLB Cubs, when the team struggled to a 60–94 record, one game out of last place in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

. The offseason resulted in a management overhaul and owner Philip K. Wrigley's creation of the

College of Coaches The College of Coaches was an unorthodox baseball organizational practice employed by the National League's Chicago Cubs in and . After the Cubs finished 60–94 in , their 14th straight NL second-division finish, Cubs owner P. K. Wrigley anno ...

, in which (rather than hiring a full-time manager) all of the team's coaches would rotate as "head coach" of the Major League Cubs and their farm teams. Himsl was named the first head coach in the history of the College of Coaches. He posted a 10–21

win–loss record In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of matc ...

(.323) over three different terms during the season (April 11–23; May 12–30; June 5–7). His first term, from Opening Day through the club's first 11 games, produced a 5–6 mark. But in his subsequent turns as the Cubs' pilot, the team lost 15 out of 20 games. Himsl also spent part of the 1961 season managing the Cubs'

Wenatchee Chiefs The Wenatchee Chiefs were a minor league baseball team in the northwest United States, based in Wenatchee, Washington. Founded in 1937, the team was a part of the Class B Western International League through 1954, although the team did not oper ...

affiliate in the Class B

Northwest League The Northwest League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Northwestern United States and Western Canada. A Class A Short Season league for most of its history, the league was promoted to High-A as part of Major League Basebal ...

. He coached for the Cubs through , although he spent all of that campaign as the manager of the Triple-A

Salt Lake City Bees The Salt Lake City Bees was a primary moniker of the minor league baseball teams, based in Salt Lake City, Utah between 1911 and 1970 under various names. After minor league baseball first began in Salt Lake City in 1900, the Bees were long-time ...

of the Pacific Coast League. In 1965, Himsl turned to scouting and front-office administration in the Chicago organization, with time out for two years as director of MLB's Central Scouting Bureau, and retired in 1985 as the Cubs' director of scouting. He was listed as a scouting consultant for the Cubs as late as 1999,Simpson, Allan, ed., ''1999 Annual Directory;'' Baseball America, page 63 and continued to live in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

until his death in 2004.

References

External links

Major League coaching/head coaching page
from

Retrosheet Retrosheet is a nonprofit organization whose website features box scores of Major League Baseball (MLB) games from 1906 to the present, and play-by-play narratives for almost every contest since the 1930s. It also includes scores from every major ...

Watterson, Jeremy, ''Vedie Himsl.''

Society for American Baseball Research The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...

Biography Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Himsl, Vedie 1917 births 2004 deaths Alexandria Aces players Baseball coaches from Montana Baseball players from Montana Chicago Cubs coaches Chicago Cubs executives Chicago Cubs managers Chicago Cubs scouts College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University alumni Hamilton Cardinals players Major League Baseball pitching coaches Major League Baseball scouting directors Minor league baseball managers People from Fallon County, Montana St. Louis Cardinals scouts St. Paul Saints (AA) players